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Sure, it's only a two-year deal but I believe it's the third-biggest salary for the 2014 team. A guy of Colon's age can lose it at any minute.

But if he can duplicate what he did last year, then this is a terrific deal. There's no red flags among his splits. He had the groin injury last August but turned in a 1.25 ERA with 34 Ks and 4 BB in his last 36 IP.

Not sure how I feel about the deal at this point - just surprised that Sandy pulled the trigger.

Colon, Niese, Wheeler, Gee, and Mejia with Montero and Syndergaard ready to step up as needed looks pretty good as a rotation.

It'd be nice if they could find a reliable bullpen arm. They have Parnell who is solid. They have some power arms that could be pretty good but you could say that about every bullpen. Maybe they can turn Duda/Davis into a good bullpen arm.

I've been pleased with this offseason so far. They've upgraded the team without huge long-term commitments.

Hmm, Colon is older than I am and got a two year contract. It seems a bit much for him, but, well, maybe. I never thought he'd last this long. Let's remember this data point the next time the fat pitcher discussion comes up.

As to the Mets... I don't know... the Mets are starting to feel like one of those old crappy Orioles teams of recent vintage. Their two big ticket signings of the offseason are a 33 year old non-star outfielder and a 41 year old pitcher.

Colon really does have a shot at being the last Expo, doesn't he? Maicer Izturis was pretty terrible last year, Jon Rauch might be done, and who knows what was going on with Scott Downs being left off the Braves playoff roster.

Do the Mets have an alternate jersey with primarily orange, like the Marlins? They should get one.

As to the Mets... I don't know... the Mets are starting to feel like one of those old crappy Orioles teams of recent vintage.

Honestly, this is the best I've felt about them in years. There's a scenario where the Mets become the 2008-2013 Rays. They have a lot of young intriguing starting arms. They have Harvey, Wheeler, Niese, Gee, Montero, and Syndergaard all at Double-A ball or above and under the team's control for the forseeable future.

They don't have a lot of hitting prospects but they do have Puello and D'arnaud. Alderson et al. haven't been great at producing position players so far.

The Mets could suck over the next 5 years but I don't think they are the crappy Orioles of recent vintage.

The Mets have Harvey who was probably the second best pitcher in the NL before he got hurt. Obviously he got hurt but the recovery rates from TJS are pretty good these days. He'll be back in 2015.

They have Zack Wheeler who was a 10-15 prospect and who had a respectable debut for the Mets.

They have Niese who is talented but underachieving. He finished last year strong.

They have Dillon Gee, an overachiever who is a solid back of the rotation starter. He put up a 2.71 ERA in his last 22 starts after a rough start to the season, coming off shoulder surgery.

They have Noah Syndergaard and Rafael Montero who did very well in AA and AAA respectively last year and should be ready to help the Mets in 2014-2015.

I'm not saying they have a great chance to be a contending team that relies on good young starting pitching. All plans that rely on young pitching staying healthy and good are very risky but I think there's hope.

I know he's old and fat but the guy won 18 games with a 141 ERA+ last year. He's been healthy enough to make 80 starts the last three seasons despite being suspended for 50 games. I would have guessed he would have gotten a little bit more than this.

Dan Haren got as much per year despite posting an ERA+ of 84 the last two years.

They have Niese who is talented but underachieving. He finished last year strong.

Niese had the 8th worst OBP allowed with 2 strikes in 2013 (EDIT: of 125 pitchers with min. 125 IP). He has a career .268 OBP in this split (111th worst of 369 since 2000 min. 500 IP and tied for 192nd worst of 667 since 1988 min. 500 IP).

If he can't get hitters out with 2 strikes, relatively speaking, how can he last?

They have a lineup filled with Wright and a bunch of guys on the right side of 30 (except for Granderson) who project to be about average players (despite the horrendous '13s some of them had) and as deep a collection of young and talented SPs as any team except probably the Cardinals.

I don't expect them to finish above .500, let alone compete for a playoff spot. But if they could just add a few above replacement-level RPs, .500 wouldn't be all that unlikely, and "good" in '15 would be contingent more on health and reasonable development of prospects than acquiring different players. Things appear to be heading in the right direction. I haven't been able to make that statement since 2007 or so.

Even acknowledging the likely payroll disparity, I think it's a good bet that the '14-'18 Mets have a better cumulative record than the '14-'18 Yankees.

So how long a cover period does this provide Mets' ownership before someone whines that the Mets do not spend enough money on their payroll?

Not much, unless one thinks a team in New York should be lauded for a payroll like the 2013 Mariners, Indians or Royals. It is even less money than last year's payroll, but without tens of millions in dead wood like Bay, Santana and Francisco.

Mets payroll now at about $83 million
December 11, 2013 7:49:05 PM PST
By Adam Rubin

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- So what is the Mets' 2014 payroll now that Bartolo Colon appears coming on board at two years, $20 million? It's not yet clear whether the money is evenly distributed, but let's assume so and do the math ...

To round out the roster, you need to add 13 players, at least at the $500,000 major league minimum, for an additional $6.5 million.

So the rough calculation at this point is the Mets currently have a payroll of $82.65 million.

Of course, Davis (and even Murphy) may get traded, which means as much as $9 million could be freed to spend elsewhere, less the contracts the Mets got back in any such trade.

By the way, Sandy Alderson notes our calculation isn't entirely accurate. The Mets will be paying, perhaps, 35 players in 2014 -- not just 25. That's because every time a player lands on the DL, for instance, another player is called up. So the Mets are paying more than 25 players at any given time

Dan Haren got as much per year despite posting an ERA+ of 84 the last two years.

Haren had a 3.29 ERA in the 2nd half and his peripherals were still excellent. The HR ball is what did him in. Percentage wise, the odds are better that a 33-34 yr. old will out perform a 41-42 yr. old.

I know he's old and fat but the guy won 18 games with a 141 ERA+ last year.

He has an ERA+ of 127 over 342 innings the last 2 seasons, so '13 wasn't just a fluke. I don't really know how he's doing it-- kept waiting for him to implode last year, but it never happened-- even after coming back from the (groin?) injury in late August, he pitched well (actually, better: 36 innings, 34 Ks, 35 H, 4 BB, and 3 HR). Pretty confident he'll be good in '14, no confidence for '15. Given how well he pitched last season, I am OK thinking of this as $15 M for '14 and $5 M for '15.

They now have 3 pitchers on board who should be able to go deep into games. Mejia and Wheeler are sort of wildcards in that area: Wheeler will have to pitch a little more efficiently (he exited 8 times last season before the 6th after throwing around 100 pitches), and with Mejia, who knows how he'll hold up. But that rotation should keep them in games.

Regarding Haren, so except for the times he was awful, he was averagish? Also, you can't say that his peripherals were excellent when his home run rate was so awful. That's an important part of peripherals.

Regarding Haren, so except for the times he was awful, he was averagish? Also, you can't say that his peripherals were excellent when his home run rate was so awful. That's an important part of peripherals.

Pitchers can succeed with high HR% providing they can be above avg. in other aspects, principally keeping runners off base which Haren has historically been quite a bit better then average. Pitchers have also been able to revert homerunitis.
Personally, I'd rather take my chances on a guy who's 8 yrs. younger and who's prime was more recent then 10 yrs. ago.

It's reasonable to say that Haren might be a better risk than Colon. I'd argue otherwise considering that Haren has always been someone who gives up homers and that's not likely to change as his velocity declines. It's not how old you are. It's how old your stuff is.

Niese had the 8th worst OBP allowed with 2 strikes in 2013 (EDIT: of 125 pitchers with min. 125 IP). He has a career .268 OBP in this split (111th worst of 369 since 2000 min. 500 IP and tied for 192nd worst of 667 since 1988 min. 500 IP).

If he can't get hitters out with 2 strikes, relatively speaking, how can he last?

This seems like a strange stat. Is there evidence that it's predictive? And if he's simply below average in this stat among all pitchers since 1988, does it matter?

This is the same organization that wouldn't give RA Dickey a 3 year $36M extension because he was too old?

I'm pretty happy about that decision right now-- the return was better than what the Rays got for Shields, and there probably won't be too much of a gap between Colon and Dickey in 2014 (Colon was better in '13). I think Alderson deserves a lot of credit for that deal.

Looking at Davis's salary, there's no way they carry him into 2014. Hart and Morrison both going to Seattle helps their chances of getting something decent in return.

It's reasonable to say that Haren might be a better risk than Colon. I'd argue otherwise considering that Haren has always been someone who gives up homers and that's not likely to change as his velocity declines. It's not how old you are. It's how old your stuff is.

Your right. Harens career HR/9 is 1.09 whereas Colons is way down at 1.07.

[41] This seems like a strange stat. Is there evidence that it's predictive? And if he's simply below average in this stat among all pitchers since 1988, does it matter?

With Niese, IIRC he used to be a lot better with two strikes. But if you are merely average since 1988 and overall strikeouts are on the rise, that is not good for you. (See below).

In general, I have not looked to see whether two-strike OBP is auto-correlated year-to-year or if it is correlated with future performance in general or if there are 2-strike split outliers (as a % of overall OBP).

Two strikes, you're out

Matt Beardmore
ESPN The Magazine | April 20, 2013. [...]

Last season only 18.7 percent of pitches [with 2 strikes] were put into play, a 25-year low, and the percent of swings and misses has increased every year since 2005. Need more proof that pitchers are getting ahead and batters can't catch up? The trend of more 0-2 counts (15,751, most in 25 years) comes with the trend of fewer walks (14,709, least in 26 years), there has been a strikeout record set every year since 2008 and OBP has dropped every year since 2006.

In general, I have not looked to see whether two-strike OBP is auto-correlated year-to-year or if it is correlated with future performance in general or if there are 2-strike split outliers (as a % of overall OBP).

If there is no correlation with future performance, then why should we care that he's getting worse at it?

I'll miss watching Bartolo work. It's pretty awesome to see the fat man throw the same pitch over and over, rarely missing a spot and never wasting a pitch.

It looked like the jig was up in August when he had a few rough outings and lost a few MPH on the fastball before hitting the DL. But the time off seemed to rejuvenate his arm, as his velocity came back and he was better than ever down the stretch.

If he can't get hitters out with 2 strikes, relatively speaking, how can he last?

This seems like a strange stat. Is there evidence that it's predictive? And if he's simply below average in this stat among all pitchers since 1988, does it matter?

This 2-strike thing was bandied about a couple weeks ago re Phil Hughes. No, nobody presented evidence that it was predictive, that pitchers can get strike one and strike two but fail relative to that - due to a lack of ability - at getting strike three.

I have no idea about any research done for this stuff, but I would assume guys that have lower swinging strike % (or i guess just higher foul ball%) might struggle more with 2 strikes since they are less likely to get the swinging strike to end an at bat. Niese generally has a swinging strike% of around 8%. He didn't have enough IP to qualify, but there were 81 starters who did, 8% puts you at 63rd. Of course, one of the guys behind him was David Price.

I have no idea about any research done for this stuff, but I would assume guys that have lower swinging strike % (or i guess just higher foul ball%) might struggle more with 2 strikes since they are less likely to get the swinging strike to end an at bat.

Seems a reasonable theory. But do these guys also have 7.5 K/9 rates, as Hughes and Niese do? (Hughes and Niese strike out around 20% of batters.)

#8: ray, aren't the mets really just being the mets here? when it comes to giving a ~32 year old guy with his best years behind him a ~4/50+ deal, that screams out NEW YORK METROPOLITANS to me personally.

idk colon's babip and peripherals off the top of my head, but you figure going out for 25/+ starts of sub-3 ERA ball just isn't going to happen, even with the NL providing a majority of pitchers instead of DHs..... but hey god bless they gotta do something to perhaps catch lightning in a bottle and have a chance to sneak in to the 8th wild card in the league or whatever, so these moves might work out for a crazy year where bartolo gets cy young votes and granderson does his .250/35/80/15 thing, albeit without those gaudy runs-scored totals he'd seemingly get in his sleep on the other side of town.

we'll see how it does.... i'm still waiting for my guy ike davis to fully return from the CIA black-ops he went off to do in either 2011 or 2012 (when he had that foot-arch bruise that ended his season in may) and of course, i was ahead of my time beating the drum/s for #IkeDavisForPresident2012 so methinks he's gotta get some more $$$ in his coffers to give us the #IkeDavisForPresident campaign we've been awaiting for far too long!